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First CUxD meeting of the semester!

Hey designers!

Last week we had our first meeting of the semester and it was great seeing old & new faces. We started out with the following question:

What does design mean?

Everyone wrote down his/her own definition on a card, which we collected and later turned into a wordle. Given the diverse group that showed up, we were excited to see the range of descriptions that were given. Here’s what we got in the end:

Some interesting keywords: process, function, purpose, strategy…is there anything else you would add to the wordle?

Afterwards, we talked about CUxD’s mission and our plans for the semester. For those who missed the first meeting, we have a range of meetings planned from design events to speakers, so stay tuned!

Now, on to the fun stuff: we wrapped up our meeting with a quick breakout session on brainstorming a redesign of an academic management system used by Cornell. We divided people into groups of 6 and asked them to brainstorm ways the system can improve based on user needs, goals, and problems.

Groups discussing problems and possible solutions

Recurring problems with the system that people raised were clutter, an ineffective announcement/calendar interface, and inconsistent content between courses. Some of the proposed interfaces were a single calendar-based page and a course-based page with tabs to easily navigate between classes.

Boris presents the system’s issues such as manual course enrollment and outdated courses

Our meeting next week will be a session on how to use Adobe Illustrator. To put what you learn to practice, we’ll also have an Iconathon!

Thanks for everyone who showed up and we are looking forward to seeing you next week!